Senior Engineer, Mission Planning

Remote: yes Posted: 2026-10-08

Senior Engineer, Mission Planning

- Contribute to mission planning integrated product team, interfacing with mission planning, ground software, and operations and product engineers to plan and execute autonomous constellation operations software features.

- Model, implement, and test concepts of operation for autonomous planning of various constellation activities including imaging, system calibration, propulsion, or other critical activities. This may involve leveraging heritage or building novel algorithms, as well developing new problem formulations to optimize image capture planning while respecting various other constraints and activities.

- Model satellite subsystems (communications, power, attitude) using methods that are compatible with existing and future ground and control software algorithms as needed to support Mission Planning functions.

- Support ongoing constellation operations and customer fulfillment efforts as a mission planning subject matter expert.

- Translate product concepts to engineering requirements and facilitate review and discussion among engineering, product and software stakeholders.

- Occasional 24/7 support expected during Launch and Early Operations or Anomaly Response in support of debugging and fixing mission planning algorithms.

- Other relevant duties assigned.

- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree or higher in one of the following fields: aerospace or mechanical engineering, systems engineering, computer science or equivalent.

- At least six (6) years of relevant professional experience.

- Experience with automation of complex systems (satellite, vehicle fleets, drones, shipping/delivery logistics etc.).

- Experience with planning or optimization algorithms and fluency with inputs/outputs/constraints to such systems.

- Experience writing technical requirements and driving to implementation.

- Experience with project management or software product development.

- Working knowledge of Go or Python.

- Knowledge of software design, maintenance, and implementation including data structures, data retrieval and storage, algorithm efficiency, and maintainable scalable code.

- Demonstrated initiative to identify and solve problems or inefficiencies in your current field of expertise.

- Possess strong team and inter-team cooperation and organization skills.

- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with a strong understanding of audience.

- Ability to sustain a workload consisting of several concurrent, independent activities.

- This program this role supports requires US citizenship.

- Expertise in satellite or aerial imagery mission planning algorithms, specifically prior experience with point target, strip mapping, pushbroom, whiskbroom, wide area capture or stereo capture planning.

- Fluent in satellite first principals such as orbital mechanics, attitude dynamics, and satellite systems.

- Demonstrated experience with modelling/simulation projects.

- Strong familiarity with orbital mechanics, attitude dynamics, and satellite systems.

- Experience with planning algorithms and fluency with inputs/outputs/constraints to such systems.

- Expertise with integer or linear program solvers.

- Experience with embedded systems pertaining to satellites or other autonomous vehicles.

Life at BlackSky for full-time benefits eligible employees includes:

- Medical, dental, vision, disability, group term life and AD&D, voluntary life and AD&D insurance